AP World History Review Question 1

"Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall," was a quote by Confucious. We think this quote has a direct connection to students preparing for AP exams. As tedious and frustrating as it may be, getting up and learning from your mistakes and to try again is the best way to get ready for these exams. Since the quote is from an international, historical icon, it only makes sense for our next question review to be on AP World History. A question from our World History sample exam is shown below:

All of the items below were policies during the rule of which communist leader?

1. Five-Year Plans2. Collectivization3. The Great Purge

The answer choices are:

Joseph Stalin

Vladimir Lenin

Karl Marx

Mao Zedong

The answer to this question is Joseph Stalin. In order to know the answer to this question, you must understand the impacts and policies that each historical figure implemented.

1.) Vladimir Lenin was a Russian communist revolutionary that founded the political theory of Leninism. His main contributions to the Russian society was playing a huge role in The October Revolution 1917, which led to the overthrow of the current government and estbalished the new Soviet Union. He also founded the Cheka, which was Russia's equivalent of a secret service.

2.) Karl Marx was a German political activist and philosopher whose main contribution to the world was the estalbishment of the collective understanding known as Marxism. His most notable works were published in the Communist Manifesto, which embodided both his and Friedrich Engles ideologies.

3.) Mao Zedong was a Chinese Communist revolutionary who was one of the founding members and leader of the People's Republic of China. Heaviliy influenced by Marxist and Leninist theories, his estblishment of a communist republic lead to many major reforms and campaigns such as the Great Leap Forward and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.

4.) Joseph Stalin was the leader of the Soviet Union directly after Lenin. He was known for implementing the Five Year Plan which focused on shifting the Soviet Union from an aggrarian society to an industrialized one. An extension to his Five Year Plan was the idea of collectivization, which involved collecting all lands to establish control under the main government. His radical thoughts and widespread famine that resulted from the shift to industrial focus led to opposition amongst the Soviet people. To supress this opposition, Stalin began a massive purge within his internal regime known as The Great Purge. This resulted in removing those people who opposed Stalin and planned to overthrow his power. The purge led to the imprisonment, execution and exiling of millions of people.

Seeing as all these political figures have the ideals of Socialism linking them together, it is understandable that students may get confused as to who did what. Hopefully this post helps with diffusing that confusion.